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9638786 
Technical Report 
Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. Federal Environmental Quality Guidelines. Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS) 
Environment and Climate Change Canada :: ECCC 
2018 
Environment and Climate Change Canada 
14 
English 
Federal Environmental Quality Guidelines (FEQGs) provide benchmarks for the quality of the ambient environment. They are based solely on the toxicological effects or hazard of specific substances or groups of substances. FEQGs serve three functions: first, they can be an aid to prevent pollution by providing targets for acceptable environmental quality; second, they can assist in evaluating the significance of concentrations of chemical substances currently found in the environment (e.g., monitoring of water, sediment, and biological tissue); and third, they can serve as performance measures of the success of risk management activities. The use of FEQGs is voluntary unless prescribed in permits or other regulatory tools. Thus, FEQGs apply to the ambient environment. They are not effluent limits or “never-to-be-exceeded” values but may be used to derive them. The development of FEQGs is the responsibility of the federal Minister of the Environment under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 (CEPA). The intent is to develop FEQGs as an adjunct to the risk assessment/risk management of priority chemicals identified in the Chemicals Management Plan (CMP) or other federal initiatives. This factsheet provides the Federal Water Quality Guideline (FWQG) (Table 1 and Figure 1), the Federal Fish Tissue Guideline (FFTG) for the protection of aquatic life, the Federal Wildlife Diet Guidelines (FWiDGs) for the protection of mammalian and avian consumers of aquatic biota, and the Federal Tissue Guideline describing the acceptable contaminant levels in bird eggs (FTG-BE) for perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) (Table 1). FEQGs for water, fish tissue, wildlife diet and bird egg are similar to Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment (CCME) guidelines in that they are benchmarks for the quality of the ambient environment and are based solely on toxicological effects data. Where data permit, FEQGs are derived following CCME methods.

FEQGs differ from Canadian Environmental Quality Guidelines (CEQG) in that FEQGs are developed where there is a federal need for a guideline (e.g. to support federal risk assessment, federal risk management or monitoring activities) but where the CCME guideline(s) for the substance has not yet been developed or is not reasonably expected to be updated in the near future. CEQGs are preferred since they address a substance of national interest. CEQGs for PFOS in soil and groundwater are currently being developed by the CCME.